by Ellery Queen (first published as by Barnaby Ross)
Dramatis Personae
Incidental characters: Samuel Saxon (who is dead); Sir John Humphrey Bond (who is dead); James Wyeth (who is alive but does not appear); museum employees, police, a district attorney, employees of the Rivoli Bus Company, 17 elderly Indiana school teachers, etc, etc.
Place: New York City and its environs
Drury Lane...a theatrical name (it is a theatre in London’s famous West End) for a theatrical individual The American Drury Lane was a famous and wealthy Shakespearean actor until his career was ended by deafness. He retired to his palatial home on the Hudson, called The Hamlet, and while there proceeded to give the benefit of his knowledge and intelligence to the police in solving murders: the Tragedy of X, the Tragedy of Y, and the Tragedy of Z, as his chronicler titled them, becoming good friends with Inspector Thum throughout it all. And now, we come to his last case.
Inspector Thumm has retired from the New York police force, and to eke out his pension has set up shop as a private detective. He has a couple of operatives, and his daughter is the office manager. Since he doesn’t accept divorce cases business is slow…and then one day comes an interesting gentleman to his office. A man obviously disguised, who makes a singular request. Thumm is to hold onto a letter for the man, who will call him on the 25th of every month. If he should miss a call – Thumm is to open the letter in the presence of Mr. Drury Lane and take what action he sees fit. At the insistence of Patience (via office intercom and earphones) Thumm accepts the commission, and is paid a grand for his trouble.
This keeps him in business for another month, and another case. Donoghue, ex-police officer, is now a special guard at the Britannic Museum. The Britannic is a small but esteemed institution for the preservation and exhibition of old English manuscripts and books – such as Shakespeare. The museum has been closed for remodeling, but special groups are still allowed access. One such is a group of seventeen Indiana schoolteachers…except that the bus driver who took them counted eighteen people on the bus going out…and nineteen on the bus coming back…and special guard Donoghue has disappeared into the bargain.
With the assistance of Drury Lane (who is known to the curator of the museum) the Thumms gain access to the museum…and discover that a unique theft has occurred. Someone has stolen a rare and valuable copy of a four-hundred year old book, The Passionate Pilgrim (containing sonnets by Shakespeare)…and replaced it with an even more rare and valuable copy of the same book!
In addition, Thumm’s mysterious visitor of the month before fails to call on schedule. As ordered, Thumm and Patience open the envelope in the presence of Drury Lane. It turns out that within is is a piece of letterhead, from the Britannic Museum, and on the letterhead is written a few cryptic letters, which hold the clue to a priceless secret.
Who were the eighteenth and nineteenth men on that bus tour? Why has Donoghue disappeared? Why would someone still a rare book and replace it with one that is even more valuable than the first? What has the shade of Shakespeare and murder to do with the Britannic Musuem? These are the questions that Drury Lane must answer, with the assistance of Inspector Thumm, Patience, and her new beau Gordon Rowe, who works at the museum.
The events move along briskly, the characters are engaging (this being a Golden Age novel of detection there’s just enough character development to keep things interesting, and no more to slow things down) and the puzzle intriguing. Readers will also be moved to start doing a little research into the life and times of William Shakespeare!
The four cases of Drury Lane were first chronicled under the pseudonym of Barnaby Ross. Barnaby Ross was in actuality Ellery Queen (the pseudonym of Manfred B. Lee and Frederic Dannay) and when reprinted the books bear the Queen name.
Collectors Corner
Dr. Alonzo Choate, retiring curator of the Britannic Museum
Hamnet Sedlar, incoming curator of the Britannic Museum
Mrs. Lydia Saxon, patronne des arts
Crabbe, the Saxon librarian
Gordon Rowe, a young scholar
Dr. Ales, a bibliophile
Maxwell, his servant
Donoghue, special guard at the Britannic Museum
Joe Villa, a thief
George Fisher, an omnibus driver
Bolling, Chief of the Tarrytown Police Department
Inspector Thumm, retired Inspector of Detectives
Patience Thumm, his daughter
Mr. Drury Lane, who makes his last bow
Time: The Near Future (early 1930s)
The edition published by International Polygonics, Ltd’ Library of Crime Classics in 1987 is printed on bright white, acid free paper, and the pages look as crisp as when they were first published. The cover illustration features a large profile version of Drury Lane in profile (looking uncannily like Bela Lugosi) with a black cape spread out over the lower half of the cover, and on this a full figure William Shakespeare, a book, a hat, a sheet of paper with the cryptic clue from the book inside, and a spilled tube of liquid (the significance of which eludes this reviewer).
This review copyright June 14, 2000.
If you wish to comment on this review, please email us at Book Review comments.
The last Case of Drury Lane is currently out of print. It is available from used bookstores: www.abe.com.
This page sponsored by these books:
[A] [B] [C] [D] [E] [F] [G] [H] [I] [J] [K] [L] [M]
[N] [O] [P] [Q] [R] [S] [T] [U] [V] [X] [W] [Y] [Z]
Do you have the clearance to be the viewer of this page?
This page hosted by 
Get your own Free Home Page